The previous lenses had us all trying to pry open and understand what a game really is or what it means to players in general. The lens that we are discussing today puts us in the shoes of a typical gamer and helps us understand how people relate to games, instead of how games relate to people. This is the lens of problem solving.
Ask anyone why they play the games they play and they will tell you something about enjoying that game because it is a fantastically well-built world and they feel immersed easily or simply because they like to win their friends in a first-person shooter game like Valorant. But there is something we miss out when they answer while NOT playing the game they play. Try asking when they are playing and they will tell you a totally different answer.
Exactly, it all starts with identifying the goals.
The truth is, on the inside, what the players enjoy is the process of solving problems. Of course, this does not apply to everyone but from the book The Art of Game Design, the problem solving urge when playing games tend to arise from within ourselves unknowingly all the time. Take a kid playing the game Undertale for example, he will tell you confidently that he can beat that monster and frantically starts figuring out solutions to do just that. And trust me, he won’t give up until there are signs that his solutions don’t work anymore.
Take gambling games as another example. Or just about any card games that involve risk calculation. Most people love card games simply because they are able to keep their minds occupied with calculating risks and taking the right steps to win the game or make more money. Needless to say, when people find out that they no longer can find excitement in the problems or the problem is basically unsolvable, that will be the point when they leave and move on to another game with more exciting problems.
The previous lenses that we discussed were giving us insights to understand the gameplay experience from the outside in, and we try to understand how games relate to people, which is why we give definitions to games and all the rules and qualities that a game should have. But truthfully, if we approach it the other way round, as in “How do people relate to games?”, then we can see that our human species are better at solving problems than other animals, even from the beginning, which makes us such an evolved species.
Have you noticed sometimes in games you tend to tell yourself that you have to do this or do that? Like “I have to find a way out of here” or “I have to get to the other side of the river bank before they get to me”, or even telling your best friend “You have to get 18 more points to win the match”? Very closely related to the Lens of Curiosity, this lens has us set goals after asking the right questions and work our way towards them. Exactly, it all starts with identifying the goals.
If you remember the “Qualities of Good Game Goals” that we shared on our Instagram, “concrete”, “achievable”, and “rewarding” are among the three that make the list. From the view of a game developer, this is one of the toughest elements to brainstorm about because thinking of a good problem to solve needs to come from within us. And to add to the difficulty, it has to be concrete, which means the goals should be clear and easy to spot, telling players right away that this is something they need to focus on. Then, it should be achievable. When the goals they find are somewhat ambiguous, that spells danger because then they will give up immediately to find another problem with more achievable goals. Finally, goals have to be rewarding. Sure, it can be once or twice that you leave the players unrewarded and they might keep on expecting, but at one point when they no longer crave for the seemingly hidden rewards, it will be the point they leave for good.
As a game developer, I find myself struggling to find good problems for players to solve as this usually seems instinctual for avid gamers unlike me, let alone balance the qualities above. However, as I slowly put in effort to observe how indie games are made, or how they are made to pull in the players stage by stage, I find that I had to exhaust extra mental energy to be able to notice that and from there it became clearer to me. If I put myself in the shoes of the players, I will be able to see for myself what problems there are to solve! As of now, I am doing just that — completing the story and putting in the work to let good problems arise on their own for Night at the Clownville. I am confident, however, that you will definitely find problems in the game that you enjoy solving that somehow I hope you will help me find solutions to them instead.
If you have been following the updates of Night at the Clownville on our Instagram or Twitter, and you are interested to find out what problems there are in the game, be sure to stay updated because we might just include some for you!
Feel free to check out my other articles on game design lenses here:
Or if you are interested in my game plans, here you go:
